Today we revisit the issue of why student dissatisfaction in Canada seems to be concentrated in Toronto, aka the Centre of the Universe. We’ll try to answer the simple question – do Toronto schools fare poorly because a disproportionate number of Toronto students live in their parents’ basements?

Our data source today is the HESA-administered survey that fuels the satisfaction results in The Globe and Mail’s Canadian University Report, in which students are asked to express satisfaction on a scale ranging from one (Very Dissatisfied) to nine (Very Satisfied). In practice, students only rarely use the bottom half of the scale, so all institutions receive mean scores greater than five.

Living at home is indeed associated with lower satisfaction (Figure 1). Those who manage to escape their parents’ city entirely are the most satisfied. The difference is small but not insignificant – just over 0.4 points (out of 9) on average between the at-home and away-from-family groups. And Toronto certainly has plenty more kids living at home (Figure 2) – 57% of our Toronto sample lives at home, compared to 33% elsewhere.

Figure 1: Overall Satisfaction with Institution, by Living Arrangement

Figure 2: Living Arrangement by Location

So have we found our answer, then? Well, no. As Figure 3 shows, it’s not quite that simple.

Figure 2: Overall Satisfaction with Institution, by Living Arrangement and Location

While Toronto students who are stuck under the ever-vigilant eyes of their parents are indeed the least satisfied, there remains a large (0.6 points out of 9), significant and unexplained satisfaction gap between this group and those who live at home in other cities. Moreover, there’s still clearly a location effect: students who go away to university in Toronto are less happy than students who stay at home elsewhere in Canada.

So, living at home is clearly part of the answer, but it’s a long way from answering the question of why Toronto students are so friggin’ miserable. Next week, once we have some data from the new Globe survey (new CUR out on the 25th!), we’ll be delving into issues around institutional size and students’ perceptions of institutional mission.